105kg charas seized in Ahmedabad, 3 held

In one of the biggest seizures of charas (hashish) in Ahmedabad in the last five years, the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) zonal unit in Ahmedabad on Sunday seized 105kg of the narcotic from a truck near Aslali crossroads. The illegal consignment was being smuggled in a truck carrying potatoes and was headed for the rural parts of Ahmedabad.

Sources in the NCB, Ahmedabad, said that the seized charas is estimated to be worth Rs5 crore in the international market while it could fetch Rs1 crore in the domestic market.

Zonal director, Ahmedabad, NCB, Yasodhan Wanage, told DNA on the sidelines of a press conference that the charas was to be delivered in Ahmedabad while the potatoes were meant for delivery in Surat. The truck carrying the contraband and the potatoes had entered Gujarat from Rajasthan. “It had started from Jammu and had travelled through Punjab and Rajasthan before entering Gujarat. It entered Ahmedabad district from Sabarkantha,” Wanage said. The NCB sleuths arrested two residents of Jammu and Kashmir and also nabbed one Junaid Shaikh from Shahpur in Ahmedabad. The charas was to be delivered to Shaikh, sources said.

Shaikh is believed to be one of the biggest suppliers of the contraband in the city. The two J&K residents arrested by NCB sleuths are Shaikh Farook Kasim, 27, a resident of Poonch and Ishtiyak Aziz, 21, a resident of Rajouri.  Wanage said that the potatoes were used as camouflage to smuggle the narcotic. "We intercepted the truck on the basis of a tip-off and found the charas packed in space created for the purpose in the driver's cabin," he said.